Blood Resolve
by Fifth Horseman
Summary: Shinji is taken by terrorists and Misato will do whatever it takes to get him back. But where NERV is involved, things can never be taken at face value.
1. Chapter 1

**Blood Resolve**

I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or the rights to anything associated with it. Gainax created this world, I just play in it.

I do however own any and all original characters that appear within this story.

Greetings from the land of hockey and beer, and welcome to 2007. I present to you my latest effort and I hope you enjoy it. Your reviews on this piece of work, as well as any of my other stories, are welcomed and encouraged. Unless you're a flamer, which means you can F.O. & D.

_**Chapter One**_

Misato sucked in a shuddering, pain wracked breath. The bullet had hit her high, right around the middle of her left collarbone, breaking it and sending bullet fragments into her shoulder. Breathing was painful as the expansion and contraction of her chest pulled at the wound. She could feel blood running out of the wound and trickling over her shoulder to the floor. God, it hurt so much. She was barely aware of the sound of hurried footsteps slapping the floor and people yelling. Her vision began to dim and the last thing she saw was the depiction of the Tree of Life on the ceiling of Commander Ikari's office.

_**Four Days Earlier**_

It had been four months since Misato had heard the hiss of a can of beer being opened. Four months since she felt the cold, amber liquid she loved so much caress the back of her throat. The drought was over and there would be many such occurrences tonight and damn if she didn't need it. She had to unwind or she would explode. Actually, she nearly had, which was why she was home from work in the middle of the afternoon.

She started her day trying to get through the mountain of paperwork that still buried her desk, even though they hadn't had an Angel attack in four months. The Seventeenth Angel had yet to arrive and by all indications she had picked up, it was long overdue. So much so that people were actually starting to come back to the city in the hopes that the attacks were over. Even SEELE had been silent, it was as if they had disappeared. It made things tense at NERV, leaving everyone anxious and on edge and tempers were short sometimes.

She had been in the cafeteria having lunch with Ritsuko, the two of them trying to find out if they could put their friendship back together. Someone from the bridge crew, who were also taking their lunch, had made a remark that started a discussion about people's moral standards and somehow an argument had started between herself and Ritsuko. It got pretty heated, so much so that the Commander had ordered them both to go home.

But that wasn't the sole extent of her problems today. She had other things on her mind to contend with. She hadn't been right, she hadn't been herself, since Kaji left her that last message on her answering machine. She had continued seeking the truth behind NERV, unravelling the tangled and hidden strands of the truth. She had traded beer for coffee and she practically lived on it now and she was feeling the effects of high levels of caffeine and too much time spent at work and skulking in the shadows. She knew there was more that she didn't know yet but she knew she was getting close to something.

Asuka was still in the hospital and still in her unresponsive, catatonic state. Thus far, her condition hadn't changed any and there had been no signs that she was going to come out of it anytime soon. She had closed herself off within her mind and nothing the doctors had tried to do so far had brought her out.

Shinji. He hadn't been quite the same since he found out about Rei. She wished that she could do something to help him, but she had been in her own world of hurt and their relationship was suffering. They didn't argue and yell at each other, though sometimes she thought it might be better if they did. They just seemed to coexist and nothing more, all too aware of each other's pain but not sure what to do about it. It was like they were afraid to let down their emotional guard around each other for fear that they would fall apart. Problem was, if they both fell apart together, it would probably be the best thing for them, but neither wanted to be a burden to the other.

So, with everything in her life weighing down on her like she was carrying an Eva on her back, she went back to her old, reliable cure-all. Beer. It made her temporarily forget unpleasant things, it put her to sleep so she didn't have so many nightmares, and it was a blissful escape from reality. It could also lead to big trouble, as she would soon find out.

_**The Next Morning:**_

As she slowly began to awaken from her Yebisu coma, she became reacquainted with the effects of the morning after. Her head felt as if someone had driven an axe into it. She groggily pushed herself up into a sitting position and rubbed her head with the heel of her right hand.

"Damn," she swore. "I sure didn't miss this when I wasn't drinking." She stopped suddenly and looked around, coming to the realization that not only was she not in her bedroom, she wasn't even in her apartment. It looked like one of NERV's dimly lit holding cells.

"What the fuck?!" The sound of her own words made her wince as her head throbbed. "What the hell am I doing in here?!"

Possibilities began to circulate through her aching head. Had her snooping around drawn too much attention? It was something that had been in the back of her mind for a while as a probable circumstance to her quest for the truth about NERV. Or, had she done something stupid while she was drunk?

She was still dressed the way she had been when she started drinking, in denim cut offs and a short yellow tank top. Even as drunk as she was known to get, she knew that she would never go out of the apartment when she was already that blasted and not while dressed like this. And she sure as hell wouldn't have forgotten her shoes. Needless to say, she was more than just a little bit confused.

A few minutes later the door opened, the sudden bright light sending a lancing pain through her head. A Section 2 agent stepped into the doorway, cutting off the light.

"Come with us Major, you have an appointment with the Commander."

'_Aw shit!'_

* * *

It was embarrassing enough to be led through the corridors of NERV barefoot and barely dressed, but it was downright humiliating when standing in front of the Commander's desk. It also didn't help that she reeked of stale beer and looked like she had indeed just crawled out of bed. 

True to form the Commander took his time before getting down to business, glaring at her through his orange glasses and hiding his face behind his white gloved hands. His pose was calculated to intimidate, but if she could help it she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of a reaction. For his part, as always, Sub Commander Fuyutsuki just stood silently beside the desk with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Do you know why you are here Major?" the Commander asked coldly.

"No sir, I don't," she answered.

"Have you ever heard of a pro Angel group that calls themselves the Soldiers of Adam?"

"I've heard of them," she confirmed, wondering what this had to do with her. "They started spreading their propaganda leaflets around about a month ago. Like all the rest of those cults groups they condemn us for killing the Angels and depriving mankind of their heavenly message."

"Indeed," the Commander said. "But the Soldiers of Adam have taken a bold step. While you were drinking yourself unconscious last night, they abducted the Third Child and it was done right outside your apartment door."

The blood drained from her face and she felt like her heart had dropped into the pit of her stomach. "They took Shinji?" she gasped.

"One of your few remaining neighbours reported hearing a brief struggle and heard him calling for you to help him," the Commander continued. "The struggle stopped when his kidnappers told him that if he didn't cooperate they would… violate you while he watched. Apparently his concern for your questionable virtue is much greater than yours is for his safety."

Her eyes flared with anger and she met his penetrating gaze. She so badly wanted to rip the bastard's balls off and stuff them down his throat. She wanted to tell him what she thought of him and his opinion, but she was in more than enough hot water already and telling the Commander what she thought of him wasn't going to help Shinji in the least.

The Commander continued. "Admittedly, Section 2 was slow to respond and that shortcoming has been dealt with. However, they knew that you were at home and when they did arrive and saw no sign of you, they entered the apartment and found you passed out on the floor. Considering your condition, and your failure to protect the Third Child, who you eagerly volunteered to look after if you recall, a cell seemed like a good place to let you sleep it off. Considering your propensity to drink, I'm surprised that you haven't spent a few nights in a cell downtown."

The bastard was enjoying this and she'd had just about enough. She felt bad enough already and it was all she could do to keep from crumbling. Her head was pounding, she was worried about Shinji and sick about not being sober enough, or, evidently, responsible enough to help him. She was all too well aware of her shortcomings and she didn't need Commander Ikari to rub salt in the wound.

"They sent us a letter this morning taking responsibility for the kidnapping," Fuyutsuki said. "They claim that in four days we will find Shinji's body in a public place and it will be evident that he died a long, painful, and bloody death. So shall be the fate of those who kill the Angels."

An unbidden image formed in her mind of Shinji's mutilated body lying in the street, his dead eyes wide open and seemingly staring straight through her. She gagged and had to cover her mouth to keep from throwing up.

"What can I do to help get him back?" she asked when she could speak again.

"Nothing," the Commander said coldly. "Just as you did when he needed you the most, you will do nothing. You've done more than enough already. Up until now your behaviour was of little consequence since it did not affect the purpose of this organization. You performed your duties and the Angels were defeated. That, however, has now changed. As the Third Child's guardian, you are ultimately responsible for his safety and well being and you have failed miserably in that regard, possibly costing us our only usable pilot and our only means of defence should there be another Angel attack."

"Commander, I…"

"Enough!" he cut her off, raising his voice only slightly. "You are a disgrace. I am placing you on indefinite suspension and suspending your status as guardian to the Second and Third Child. You will not return to this facility without my permission. Is that clear Major Katsuragi?"

"Yes sir," she said tightly, a note of defeat in her voice.

"You are dismissed."

* * *

It was a long and miserable walk home. She had no money on her for a cab, bus or train, and the Commander didn't see fit to have Section 2 take her back to her apartment. It was extremely hot, she was badly hung over, and her sense of guilt and fear for Shinji's safety was eating her alive. 

Ugly thoughts of what he might be going through and what his captors were promising to do played through her mind like a horror movie, leaving her throwing up in the street when her nerves got the better of her. The harder she tried to keep herself together, the less success she had. By the time she got halfway home, tears were streaming down her face and she was berating herself for failing Shinji.

Shinji was the only good thing in her life. He was her family and the only person in the world that she could say she loved. She wished that she had told him that. Knowing that someone really did love him, cared about him, and believed in him, could have helped him so much. She had kept telling herself the lie that by not saying such things to him, she was keeping her distance as she should as his commanding officer. But she had taken him in because she was lonely and that had put her too close from the very start. Once he got used to her strange ways they had started to get along great. But now, she might never see him again and the fact that she hadn't been able to help him was killing her.

By the time she reached the apartment, she was falling apart. She stumbled through the door and lost it completely, the sight of all of the empty beer cans littering the kitchen table and floor sending her into a rage. Rage at the Soldiers of Adam for taking him. Rage at the Commander for his seeming enjoyment at belittling her while his own son was in the hands of people who wanted to harm him. Rage at herself for being so utterly useless. In the debris of her previous night's activities she saw the mess she had made of her life and what it was costing her. Sobbing and screaming, she began to tear the place apart.

The kitchen table was the first thing to go, its load of empties clattering to the floor as she flipped it over. The chairs were next and were sent flying across the apartment. One went through the television, another smashing the stereo, a third one out through the glass of the balcony doors. She swung the fourth one into the counter top, smashing the window in on the microwave and sending the toaster, the coffee maker and a rack of dishes smashing to the floor.

She ripped open the fridge door and began pulling out cans of beer. With complete irrationality, a display of temporary insanity, and a total disregard for herself, she began downing the cold liquid as fast as she could. Old habits were hard to break. When in pain and filled with self doubt…drink. She literally poured it down her throat, gulping it down as fast as she could manage and spilling as much all over herself as she was able to swallow.

By the time her mind re-engaged itself, she had gone through an even ten and was soaked from head to toe. Screaming with frustration and self loathing, she began throwing full cans of beer as hard as she could. Cans dented the walls, took out the table lamps and the phone, several rupturing and spraying their foaming contents around the apartment. Flying cans sailed through destroyed balcony doors, over the railing and down to the street below.

In the midst of her fury she stepped on a piece of glass from the coffee pot with her bare right foot and slipped and fell to the floor, pieces of glass and broken dishes lacerating her knees and hands. The pain jarred her senses and her rage began to ebb. Choking and sobbing, she half crawled, half stumbled down the hall to Shinji's room and sat on the edge of his bed.

"I'm sorry Shinji," she cried. "I'm so sorry. I'm weak and I wasn't here when you needed me. I let you down and you probably hate me now. But I'll do whatever it takes to find you and bring you back. I won't let them get away with this. Even if it costs me my life, I'll make them pay for taking you."

She laid down on his bed and began to drift off to sleep, her rampage having drained her of the little energy she had left.

* * *

When she awoke late that afternoon, her head still hurt, but not as bad. She made her way to the bathroom and picked the glass out of her wounds before taking a long, hot shower. Feeling somewhat better when she emerged from the steam shrouded bathroom, she dressed her wounds. The one on her foot was nasty and was going to give her problems walking. It probably needed stitches but she would settle for a heavy bandaging for now. 

She turned on her computer and began a search for any information she could find on the Soldiers of Adam. She found that just as with all of the other wacko groups that were out there, they had their own web site. The content was mainly a repeat of the rhetoric from their propaganda leaflets, supplemented by several commentaries ranting against NERV and their destruction of the Angels. It had a tone that suggested they were willing to commit open acts of terror to make their point.

Curiously though, she thought, considering what they professed to be willing to do, there was no mention that they had kidnapped Shinji. Surely they would have boasted about such an accomplishment. They had in their hands the one Evangelion pilot who had killed more Angels than the others combined. If the Soldiers of Adam were like all of the other groups they would not hesitate to take advantage of the publicity that this would bring to their so called cause.

She searched for news items for the past two days and found not a single mention of the kidnapping. She tuned the radio in her room to the local all news station and found no mention of it there either.

"Either NERV has blocked the media from releasing this," she thought aloud. "Or the Soldiers of Adam are focusing on NERV rather than a public campaign." The note Fuyutsuki had told her about stated that Shinji's body would be found in a public place. With no media coverage to lead up to it, that could suggest that they were going after NERV alone, or going after them first before making their deed public. But if that was the case they must want something from NERV.

"Could they be looking for a ransom?" she wondered aloud. "Fat chance on getting one. The Commander didn't care about Shinji enough to raise him, so I doubt he'd pay a ransom to get him back, even if he is the only viable pilot. He'd have to be desperate and have no idea how to find the kidnappers."

Regardless of the motivations of the Soldiers of Adam, she needed to find them and get Shinji back. She didn't trust Section 2 to do the job, since they should have been paying attention in the first place and succeeded where she had so obviously failed. If they had been doing their jobs Shinji wouldn't have been kidnapped. She wanted to talk to those agents as well as any of the others who were trying to locate Shinji. If she had to she would turn the city inside out to find out where the kidnappers were hiding him. She would threaten and lean on whoever it took to get the information that would lead her to whatever rat hole the Soldiers of Adam called home.

After downing some aspirin, she slipped into a pair of jeans and a dark blue tank top. She pulled her old military boots out of a duffle bag in the closet and put them on. She hadn't worn them since the last training course she went on and that was when she was still back in Germany. The boots were big enough to accommodate the bandages on her right foot and were reasonable to walk in.

Even though it was still very warm out, she put on a lightweight jacket, mainly for the purpose of concealing her gun. She checked the load in her trusted HK USP .40 and slid it into the waist of her jeans at her back. She checked the three spare magazines she had for it put them in the jacket's pockets. At thirteen rounds apiece, including the magazine in the gun, she had a total of fifty two rounds on her. She had a feeling in her gut that she was going to need it before this was over.

If she found herself in a position where she had to make an assault against the cult, she was confident that she had the skills to do it. She was well trained and was a damn good shot. However, she would have liked to have had a little more armament to fall back on. She wished she could have raided the armoury at NERV for one of the HK 416 carbines or an MP-5, lots of ammunition, and maybe a few flash bang and CS gas grenades. But, since the Commander had suspended her and restricted her access to NERV, she would have to make due with what she had.

She went back to the closet and dug into the same duffle bag she pulled the boots from and pulled out a knife in a black nylon sheath. She pulled the knife and checked the blade. The five and a half inch, non-reflective, drop point blade was still razor sharp. She returned it to its sheath and hooked it to the waist of her jeans at her right hip. Her jacket was long enough to cover it and keep it concealed.

She grabbed her cell phone and her keys and took a moment to gaze at the damage she had done to her home before she left. She felt the anger welling up inside her again, but this time she would be directing it elsewhere. It would be channelled towards her search for information and anyone who stood in her way of acquiring it. She knew she could be intimidating when she was angry and she would need to be if she was going to find out anything.

As a matter of fact, she was counting on it. She was going to get her Shinji back and tear apart the assholes who had taken him from her. She didn't care if she had to stomp through Tokyo 3 like fucking Godzilla. Hell, she'd burn the whole goddamned city down if that's what it took to find him and get him back.

Stoked high on anger and adrenaline, and armed with only a pistol, a knife, and a nasty disposition, she went out into the night. She was going to find out who took Shinji, she was going to find out where they were, and she was going to kill them. No matter what it took, no matter the cost.

* * *

It had been a hard night and Misato looked pretty rough around the edges the next morning as she sat in a small café a few blocks from her apartment, having breakfast. She had talked to and screamed at a dozen Section 2 agents and every one of them had given her the cold shoulder and refused to say much. Even the two or three agents she was on good terms with wouldn't give her any information. It was clear that the Commander had told them not to tell her anything about what happened the night of the kidnapping or about the subsequent investigation. 

Her next course of action had been to hit every out of the way dive and weirdo bar she could find and throw her NERV ID around and see what she could shake loose. The cults that were more well known had gained members from both the gutter and the more intellectual ends of society. In some of the higher end bars and cafes she had found people sympathetic to the pro-Angel movements, but no one who looked like they had the balls to do anything more than chant and hold up protest signs. They were little more than misguided idealists.

She had a little more luck in the low end places and a lot more trouble too, and that had been fine by her. She had to fight her way out of a few places, earning a black and swollen left eye, some sore ribs, and bruised knuckles for her trouble. But, she had made her presence known and had left considerable damage in her wake, proving that she wasn't all that rusty at the art of breaking heads. Several people would be spending time in the hospital. In a few places she had needed to pull her gun to both get information and get out in one piece, and in a couple she had needed to spend a couple of rounds to let people know just how serious she was.

The summary of the thin information she gained was that the Soldiers of Adam was a small outfit and seemed to find their members among former military personnel who had run afoul of the law and were down and out. Why those people would suddenly go pro Angel was unknown, short of being paid to do it, but the one thing they all had in common was their ability to handle a gun.

As far as where they based themselves, it was rumoured to be somewhere in one of the zones that were marginally habitable due to damage from the Angel attacks. That didn't narrow it down very much and she could spend days checking out damaged buildings and she didn't have that kind of time. In roughly forty eight hours they would be dropping Shinji's lifeless body somewhere in Tokyo 3.

She wouldn't be able to live with herself if that happened, and she would probably end up eating her gun if it did. She wanted him back where he belonged, safe and sound in their home where he should be. She felt connected to him, like they were somehow intended to be a part of each other's lives. She wanted to be able to tease him again and make him turn red. She wanted to flirt with him and see him go ballistic. She wanted to see him smile and hear him laugh, something neither of them had done much of lately. Most of all she wanted to apologize to him and ask him to forgive her. She needed him in her life and she couldn't imagine him not being there. The loneliness would be unbearable.

She leaned back in her chair and stretched as the waitress brought her another cup of coffee. She needed to try and narrow down the possibilities of where the Soldiers of Adam might be hiding. There were several areas that had buildings that would fit the rumours she was told about. She could rule out any place that was obviously unsafe and marked as condemned on the damage assessments. She was very familiar with those damage assessments because it was part of the paperwork that landed on her desk and never seemed to go away.

The next level of damaged buildings were ones that were designated as requiring further engineering inspections to see if they were worth repairing. Most of those buildings were damaged badly enough that it would likely be more economically feasible to just knock them down and rebuild. They would probably pick a building that was reasonably sound but had been evacuated and might still have utilities. While that narrowed down the selection a bit, it was still a lot of territory to cover.

In her mind, if she was going to kidnap someone, she would not want to transport them any farther than necessary. A longer distance to travel to the hideout meant a greater chance of discovery along the way, especially if the kidnappers were to be spotted as they fled the scene. The idea would be to make the snatch as quickly and quietly as possible and get into hiding fast without being spotted. That meant they might choose a place close to the scene, even if it was only as a temporary hideout. She could think of some places that weren't too far from her building that fit the bill, but unless they were still there she wouldn't be any closer to finding them than she was now.

Something that was bothering her from her activities the night before was that not once had she run into any Section 2 agents after her initial confrontations with them. She also hadn't seen any indication from the people she had talked to that anyone from NERV had been around to make the same inquiries she was.

She certainly wasn't a trained investigator, but common sense and a little bit of basic knowledge about the other pro Angel groups had led her to a line of reasoning that she felt had her on the right track. Unless she was way off, why hadn't Section 2 come to the same conclusions she had? They had trained investigators on staff, they had plenty of personnel to hit the streets with and should have hit the same places she had, even if it was just a routine process of elimination. The lowlifes she had talked to were the type of people who usually knew what was going on in the dark shadows of the city and were the type of people that any investigator would hit up for information.

'_Dammit!'_ she swore to herself as she drained her coffee. _'Something really doesn't smell right about this whole thing and I really need a break here somewhere if I'm going to find them.'_

She paid her bill and limped out to her car. The cut on her foot had been bleeding during her activities of the night before and it felt like the bandage was stuck to it and was pulling at the wound with every step. She would re-bandage it when she got home and would try to grab a couple of hours of sleep before she resumed her search. The physicality of the previous night, along with the exhausting effects of her anger had drained her. A quick power nap might refresh her mind a bit.

When she opened the car door she spotted a plain, white envelope on the drivers seat. Her hand went under her jacket and gripped her pistol as she carefully looked up and down the street for any sign of someone watching her. When she saw no one but uninterested pedestrians, she picked up the envelope and opened it. Inside was a hand written note.

_You will find what you are looking for at the address below. You are right not to trust Section 2 in this, they are incompetent fools. If you wish to catch the Soldiers of Adam all at once, do not come until after dark. The one you are looking for is thus far unharmed._

The address was for the Komae Senior High School, which was about fifteen blocks from where she was now and it was right on the edge of the habitable zone where Rei had detonated her Eva four months earlier. Alarm bells began to go off in her head. This was just too damned convenient, but she didn't see where she had any other choice but to go with it. There were enough inconsistencies with this whole incident that it made her suspect that there was another motive behind the kidnapping. She had a couple of ideas forming in her head, but she didn't have anything to substantiate them with. Somebody obviously wanted her specifically to go there and the shiver that went up her spine told her that she better watch her ass when she did.

* * *

Thank's for reading Chapter One. As always, I encourage and look forward to your reviews. 

This will be a three chapter story and I will be updating on Fridays which seems to have become my day of choice.

Unless I decide to be exceedingly evil and leave everyone hanging.

Just kidding.

Maybe.

Anyway, while you're at it, read and review my other stories. You know how to find them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Blood Resolve**

I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or the rights to anything associated with it. Gainax created this world, I just play in it.

I do however own any and all original characters that appear within this story.

Please read, enjoy, and review.

_**Chapter Two**_

At the stroke of midnight Misato was hiding in the shadows of an abandoned building down the street from the high school. Upon getting home she had managed a couple of hours of fitful, nightmare filled sleep before giving up on it and settling in front of her computer to bring up a map of the city and the area around the school specifically. Once she had familiarized herself with it, she redressed the wound to her foot and set out for the school, spending the rest of the day scouting out her target.

Parking a couple of blocks away, she had approached on foot, taking a circuitous route around the neighbourhood. She was careful to stay out of sight, using other damaged and abandoned buildings for cover, stopping often and observing the area through her binoculars.

The west end of the three storey school building had suffered the worst of the damage. It looked like a stray shell from one of the Eva's rifles had hit the end of the building and blown it in. All of the doors seemed to be chained shut on the outside and a temporary fence had been erected around the damaged end of the building. There was a hole cut next to one of the support posts that was big enough to allow a person to squeeze through, leaving it as the only entrance.

She had seen five people enter through the fence during the evening and she knew there was a least one more person inside. She had seen glimpses of them throughout the afternoon as she observed the building. They were in a room on the third floor and it had looked like they were talking to someone that was out of her line of sight. Hopefully that someone was Shinji. She hadn't been able to get a look at the person's face because they had rarely turned towards her and her view was limited because they had covered most of the window. She noticed several other windows that were covered and that told her that the electricity was probably still live to the building. They were blacking out the windows of the rooms they were using so that no one would see the glow from the lights.

Her theory had been confirmed when it got dark and she could see slim lines of light around the edges of the third floor window, which had now been fully covered over. There was also a faint glow through the doors and windows that looked over the central foyer and staircase at the front of the school. It looked like they were utilizing just enough of the lights to keep themselves from stumbling around in the dark, but not enough to draw undue attention from outside. Not that they would have anyway since all of the buildings for three blocks were completely uninhabited.

She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths to calm her nerves and focus herself. Chances were good that they knew she was coming. It was probably a set up and she was rusty at close quarters combat, though she had been well trained and she was an excellent shot. She hoped that would be enough to compensate for a lack of practice.

Still, she stood an excellent chance of getting herself killed, but so long as she got Shinji out of there first, she didn't care. She had already failed him by not being able to answer his call for help, and knew she hadn't been a very good guardian to him. But there was no way in hell that she was going to leave him in the hands of people who meant to harm him. She was determined that she wasn't going to fail him this time, even if the cost was her life.

She pulled her pistol and clicked off the safety, cracking the slide open to make sure there was a round in the chamber. She looked up at the window of the room where she had seen activity during the afternoon. There was a determined look in her eyes and she was ready to get down to business.

"Hang in there Shinji, I'm coming to get you."

* * *

Shinji Ikari was wondering if he had been born under a black cloud or some other equally suspicious circumstance. After everything else that had happened to him in his life, now he was tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth, in a classroom in an abandoned school. The room had been his home for the last two days, his bed a gym mat and a blanket. They gave him bottles of water to drink, but he hadn't eaten since he had been there. 

Until earlier in the day his kidnappers hadn't even spoken to him except to silence him by making threats towards Misato when they first grabbed him. Earlier in the day though, he had been asked a bunch of questions by the man who led the group, asking him how much he knew about NERV's purpose. There wasn't much he could say, since as far as he knew, NERV's only purpose was to fight the Angels.

When he was done asking his questions, the man told him that someone would be coming to try and rescue him tonight and that his ordeal would be over one way or another. Currently, while Shinji was seated near the front of the room under the only light that had been left intact and functional, the man was at the back of the room behind a stack of desks waiting to ambush Shinji's rescuer should they live long enough to find him.

He had never seen the man's face, or the faces of any of the other kidnappers for that matter. They either wore masks around him or had him blindfolded when they were around. The man in the room with him was the leader of the group and Shinji could only identify him by his cold, gravely voice. He had asked the man repeatedly about why he had been abducted but he would tell him nothing. However, he had overheard two of the other men talking outside the room later on, though and he didn't like what he heard.

'_We're being well paid to do this job and it isn't about the kid anyway, so stop complaining. He's just the bait. A convenient tool to lure a target and nothing more.' _

He was scared to death. He didn't know what they intended to do with him when this was over. What he did know was that he didn't want to see someone give up their life in order to try and rescue him. No one should have to pay a price that high for something so worthless. He was ambivalent and apathetic about his own chances of survival, not really caring if he lived or died. But if he was to die tonight, he would have only one regret. He would regret not thanking Misato for taking him in and caring about him. He would regret not telling her that she truly was his best friend and that he loved her. She was truly the only family he ever really had.

* * *

Gaining entry had been easy enough, but it was so dark in the damaged end of the building that she had to carefully feel out every step. There was dim light ahead at the central core of the building, but it was far too dim and weak to do her much good yet. She hadn't seen or encountered any of the kidnappers yet, but she wasn't really surprised. It was too soon for them to attack. They would likely wait until she came to the dimly lit central foyer where the darkness could no longer cloak her and she tried to make it to the central staircase. Another way to gain access to the third floor undetected, something they might not have expected, would have been nice. 

There had been a set of stairs at the end of the building where she entered, but they had been mostly destroyed along with the rest of the end of the building. There would be stairs at the far end as well, but she would have to pass through the kidnapper's likely ambush point to get there. She supposed she could have went to that end first and tried to gain entry, but she couldn't pick a lock and she had no tools to cut the lock or the chain that secured the door. She could have shot it off but the noise would have alerted them to her plan and they would have rushed to meet her in force. Besides, she was only guessing that Shinji was on the third floor and if she was wrong it would have been all for nothing anyway. Better to go in where they wanted her to, understanding that they would be waiting for her somewhere along the way.

Every few steps she would stop and listen carefully for any sounds of her foes, but so far she had heard nothing of them. The only sound she did hear was her own breathing and the soft rustle of her clothing as she moved. The cut on her foot was bleeding again and it hurt like hell, making it difficult to walk without favouring it as she slowly advanced down the hall.

She held her gun in a two handed grip and up at eye level, tracking everywhere she looked, just like she had been taught to do years ago. As she got closer to the centre of the building, she heard a slight sound and saw a shadow move. Someone was probably getting tired of waiting for her and had fidgeted a bit in their position.

In the faint light from the central foyer, she could see the mostly glass walls of the administration office up ahead on her left. It was the last room at the end of the hallway and occupied the whole corner block on that side of the hall. A hallway continued back past the far end of the office around the corner to her left, from the front entrance and central stairs. She looked at the door of the room she was now even with, which was the last one before the office, and noted that it was the school's first aid clinic.

Keeping her eyes and her gun focused on the area ahead of her, she reached out with her left hand and tested the doorknob, finding it unlocked. She stepped up to the door, listening carefully as she opened it very slowly. When the door was open wide enough, she slipped through and closed it just as slowly and quietly. As she had hoped, there was a hallway to her right that led down to the office, passing the principal's office along the way. If she stayed away from the dim light that was coming in through the office windows, she should be able to observe the foyer and the staircase and hopefully spot her enemy.

She edged her way along the hallway, staying low and moving very cautiously. She scanned every inch of the area outside that she could see. Up on the second floor she caught a glimpse of someone stepping back from the railing and into the shadows behind him. She ducked in behind the big L-shaped reception desk that followed the contours of the room and stayed as low as she could. The desk was topped with a chest high counter that offered her good concealment.

A couple of minutes later she saw the guy again, and she saw him gesture to someone across from him. At least she now knew where two of the six people she knew were on site were located. Two of them had the stairs covered and if she assumed that there was at least one person with Shinji, she still had three unaccounted for, unless there were more people she hadn't seen and she wasn't ruling that out.

She thought the chances were good that there would be someone waiting down the hall that ran straight back from the stairs and past the office. If she was running the show she would have someone there. If she was right, she would have been covered from two sides from above and from her left on the ground floor if she had entered the foyer. There would be no need to have someone to the right since that was the direction of the front doors and they were chained shut from the outside and offered no escape, and there was probably someone in the other ground floor hallway on the other side of the foyer.

She hadn't encountered anyone along the hallway on her entry, but that didn't mean that someone hadn't been hiding in one of the rooms, waiting for her to go by so they could seal off her only exit. Again, that's what she would have done, because it would effectively leave an intruder boxed in on all sides. Sooner or later though, someone would have to leave their position to look for her. Her bet was on the guy covering the only way in and out and he would probably realize where she was pretty soon.

She crept back down the hall to the first aid room and stopped just before she entered and put her back to the wall. She had heard a slight noise, like the sound of something brushing against the door. She caught a heavy whiff of stale tobacco and cheap aftershave and it confirmed for her that someone was entering the first aid room. He was so close that any noise she made, no matter how slight, would draw his attention.

It was unlikely that she could physically overpower him and do it quietly, and reaching for her knife would cause too much movement since she would either have to put her pistol away or switch it to her left hand, which wouldn't work either. She was wearing a nylon jacket and the movement of her sleeve against the body of the jacket would make a soft rasping sound that he would definitely hear. Besides, without a free hand to work with she wouldn't be able to cover her prey's mouth to keep him quiet while she slit his throat or speared the knife through one of his kidneys. She didn't have much choice.

She pointed her USP at what should be the centre of the target's body mass and fired two rounds in quick succession. She was rewarded with a pained grunt that told her she had hit her target. As the guy went down he reflexively yanked the trigger of his weapon, a shotgun, sending a scattering of shot across the first aid room that smacked into the nurse's desk. The loud report of the weapon was harsh on her ears in the confined space, and the flash from the muzzle screwed up her night vision. When she bent down to retrieve the weapon, she could just hear one of the other gunners repeatedly calling out the name Asuhara through the ringing in her ears. When he got no response he called out the names Imagawa and Hisamatsu. He was sending two people to take a look.

She was going to go back into the administration office when she heard a door hinge squeal. There were two entrances to the office. One was just a few feet up the hall from where she was, the second was around the corner and down the hall, on the far side of the office. She had been right about there being a shooter down that hallway.

She stepped back into the first aid room so that she could watch the office hallway, the outside hallway through the short stretch of the office windows that she could still see, and the door to the first aid room. She didn't have the luxury of time to move the dead body blocking the door so she could close and lock it. Looking out through the office windows, she saw someone pass through the dimly let foyer. It looked like they intended to come down the hallway and in the first aid room door in an attempt to pinch her between them and the guy coming through the office.

As quietly as she could, she pulled down the slide on the shotgun to chamber the next round and backed a few feet further into the room and sought partial cover behind a short supply cabinet. She could stay pressed up against the wall and fire over top of it, leaving very little of herself exposed. She didn't know which one of the thugs would show themselves first, but it didn't matter much. As soon as she saw a body part or a gun poke through one of the doorways, she was going to open fire. Waiting for them to come to her probably wasn't the best idea, but it was all she really could do at the moment. She was flying by the seat of her pants here as it was and she had to take whatever came her way and make the best of it.

About twenty seconds later she heard movement at the first aid room entrance. A sub-machine gun opened up from the doorway just as she fired. Several rounds whipped past her, far too close for comfort, but her shot silenced it. The guy was screaming his head off out in the hallway. She had fired at his muzzle flash and had probably hit his weapon and his hands as well as any other random body parts that happened to be in the way.

She racked the slide and immediately fired at the other doorway, deflecting the buckshot off the wall and down the hallway. She heard someone start swearing furiously, but it didn't sound like the pellets had done much damage to the guy. She racked the slide to fire again, but it wouldn't come all the way down. The empty shell casing had jammed in the ejection port. She didn't have time to try clearing it so she tossed it aside, drawing her USP and dropping down behind the storage cabinet. It was a good thing she did.

Her adversary stuck his weapon around the corner and blindly sprayed an entire clip around the room. Luckily, none of the bullets found her. As soon as his gun went silent, she dove out from her cover and slid into view on her right side, firing a quick double tap. The first round struck the sub-machine gun the guy was trying to reload, while the second struck him just below his breastbone, staggering him back. She followed up with two more rounds, one through his right eye, the second through his forehead.

She got up and went to the first aid room door and peered cautiously out into the hall. The guy she had wounded with the shotgun was still making a lot of noise, but he was retreating down the hall and was nicely silhouetted against the faint light. As he stumbled away from her, she lined him up and squeezed off two shots, both going through the back of his head and blowing out his face.

She had no qualms about shooting the guy in the back. This wasn't some cheap Hollywood flick where the hero gave you a heads up and a sporting chance. This was the real deal and you didn't let the bad guys off easy or let them have a second chance. Hell, you didn't give them a first chance if you could help it. They were trying to kill her and they had Shinji. She didn't care who she had to kill, or whether she had to do it with a gun, a knife, or her bare hands, she was getting him back and fuck anybody who didn't like how the game was played.

She ducked back into the room as someone from the second floor landing fired a burst in her direction. They had little chance of hitting her from up there, the angle was no good. She needed to get moving and going through the office would offer her better cover since anyone shooting from the landing had a very limited field of fire. She doubted they could hit anything in the room beyond the area in front of the counters because they would be shooting downward at too steep of an angle to hit anything farther back.

She went back through the office and behind the desks to the door on the far side. Remembering that the hinges squeaked, she took a deep breath, yanked the door open and sprinted out and to her right, heading for the underside of the main staircase. The gunners opened fire in her direction when the heard the noise from the door, but they couldn't reach her.

When they stopped she stepped out and fired around the right side of the stairs, exposing herself just long enough to blindly fire two quick shots up at the landing. She immediately ducked back and ran the other way, sprinting into the hallway on the opposite side and going several meters down the hall and sticking to the right side. The gunner she had fired at was the only one with a firing angle, and all he could do was pound the wall opposite her new position, never coming close.

She eased her way back towards them, but stayed out of sight. If she stayed quiet one of them might think she was trying to get to the stairs at the far end and would rush down there to cut her off. She actually thought about trying to beat them to the other end of the hall, but with her bad foot she would never outrace them.

She heard one of them tell the other one to stay there and then heard boots slapping the floor as they started running. Hopefully she had them figured right and the runner was on his way to the stairs at the end of the hall. She gave herself a moment to settle her breathing and swap the nearly empty magazine in her pistol for a full one before risking a look around the corner. She nearly got her skull ventilated for it as a three round burst hit the wall just above her head. She did see where he was standing though. She stuck her arm out far enough to snap off two quick shots in his general direction before pulling back again. He returned fire and as soon as he did she whipped around the corner and fired off five shots in rapid succession.

He must have been expecting something like this because he hadn't moved and kept firing as she opened up. Her first two rounds missed entirely. The next two were on line but struck the railing that went around the landing. The last round struck him in the chest. He managed two, three round bursts from his early model MP-5 before she took him out. One round burned down her left forearm as she fired, the second tore through her hair above her left ear, but didn't hit flesh, while the third round and the subsequent three all missed high to her left.

She ducked back around the corner, her heart racing a mile a minute from the close call. She brushed her fingers through her hair and dislodged several purple strands that had been severed.

"Too close," she breathed. She pushed up the sleeve of her jacket to inspect the wound to her arm. A bloody two inch furrow was gouged out of the top of her forearm, just short of her elbow. It stung like hell and was bleeding quite a bit.

"I really didn't need another scar."

She didn't have time to worry about it. She heard the sound of someone running towards her from the other end of the hall and it was soon joined by the sound of a sub-machine gun on full auto. She had to dive across the hall and roll around the corner as rounds began to chew up her previous position. She got up and started running down the centre hall to find some cover. She saw a sign over a door, marking it as the teacher's staff room and decided that it was as good a place as any.

However, just as soon as she thought that, someone stepped out of the recessed doorway and slammed their arm hard across her chest, taking her off her feet. She had no chance to avoid it. She was flung over backwards and her head bounced hard off the floor and she very nearly lost consciousness. The light in the room was switched on and she was dimly aware of two people standing over her. Their faces looked vaguely familiar but she couldn't place them. One of them reached down and picked up her pistol. She heard the man that had been chasing her come to a stop behind her.

"It's about fucking time you lent a hand Kamio," the guy complained. "Why the hell didn't you step in before?"

"You know very well Hamamoto that we're only here to observe and make sure the job gets done," the man who clubbed her answered. "The job you and your friends were hired to do, but can't seem to accomplish. With results like this it's little wonder you were all kicked out of the army."

"Fuck all that," Hamamoto spat as he cocked his weapon and pointed it at Misato's head. "She's down, I'll finish her and collect my money."

"No," Kamio's partner said.

"No?" Hamamoto questioned. "What the hell do you mean no, Shimedzu? You changing the rules in the middle of the game?"

"Quite the opposite," Kamio answered. "This went pretty much the way we thought it would. We expected that she would kick your asses. Her military training was much better than that of you and your friends and she's motivated by something other than money. She's also a far better shot than all of you put together."

"You set us up?!" Hamamoto bellowed.

"Her rescue attempt had to look like a heroic, but failed effort," Shimedzu told him. "And that has been accomplished."

"And now your usefulness has ended," Kamio told Hamamoto as he raised Misato's pistol and shot him between the eyes, then tossed the pistol aside. He looked down at Misato who was starting to regain her wits and he kicked her hard in the ribs. She let out a loud grunt of pain and clutched at her side.

"You on the other hand, Major Katsuragi, we do still have a use for," he told her. "Our boss said if we took you alive we could enjoy your company for a couple of hours, just so long as we kill you before the sun comes up."

"Lucky me," she wheezed.

"You have no idea," Shimedzu said. "By the time we're done with you, you will wish we had let Hamamoto kill you."

He grabbed her by the hair and jerked her to her feet. She let the momentum carry her up and forward towards him, allowing her to do two things. She lunged at him and brought her head up hard under his chin, slamming his jaw shut and rewarding herself with the sound of snapping teeth. His head snapped back and he stumbled back into the wall. She followed up immediately by slamming her knee into his crotch as hard as she could. She could actually feel his testicles rupture against her knee. His mouth flew open with a breathless gasp, spilling out blood and broken teeth. The pain was so intense that he didn't even scream. His eyes rolled up in his head and he began to slowly slump to the floor.

Kamio swung a punch that caught her hard in the side of the head and knocked her stumbling aside, allowing Shimedzu to complete his graceless fall unimpeded. Another shot to the head was not something she needed right then. She swung a disoriented right at his head, which he sidestepped as he positioned himself to stomp her right knee. She felt something pop inside her knee and she fell against the wall. He reached out and clamped his left hand around her throat and used his right to hit her across the left side of the face with a heavy open handed slap. He gave the other side of her face equal treatment with the back of his hand. She saw stars and she could taste blood in her mouth. He then slammed her up against the wall and held her in place with her feet several inches off the floor.

"I should have taken a piece of you a long time ago bitch," he seethed. "You cost me and Shimedzu our jobs."

Now she knew where she had seen them before. They were former Section 2 agents. They had been in charge of the detail that had lost Shinji when he ran away after his battle with the Fourth Angel, but had been spending more time chasing skirts than keeping an eye on him. They never had taken the job seriously. She made sure they not only were taken off the protection detail, but that they got thrown out on their asses. Apparently they had found a new calling as hired thugs.

He wasn't trying to strangle her, but his grip was tight enough that she was having major difficulty breathing. Between that and the hits to the head, she was having a hard time fighting back. She tried kicking at him and chopping at his arm with her hands, but her struggles only seemed to make her weaker. Her vision started to get cloudy and she knew she would pass out soon. She heard him laugh and the pressure eased on her throat as he let her down until her feet touched the floor. Any relief she felt was short lived as he buried his right fist in her stomach with enough force to lift her off her feet.

He let her collapse to the floor in a wheezing, retching heap. When she made it back to her hands and knees he kicked her hard in the ribs again, sending her crashing back to the floor.

"You cost me my job, which cost me my wife and my home," he spat. "So when I was asked if I wanted to take on this job, I couldn't say yes fast enough."

"If you had kept it in your pants, you'd still have all that," she wheezed. "Don't blame me because you're fucking stupid."

He responded by stomping hard on her left hand and grinding his heel into it. She heard the bones snapping and screamed in pain. He roughly yanked her to her feet by the hair, painfully bending her back so he could look down into here eyes.

"Let's go find out if all the filthy things I've heard about you are true," he sneered. "Hell, maybe I'll take you upstairs and do you right in front of the kid. Then when we put a bullet through your brain, his horrified face will be the last thing you see."

That, was the exactly wrong thing to say. Her anger flared and he saw something in her eyes that he really didn't like. He suddenly felt a sharp, burning pain in his gut, just above his belt. He let go of her hair and looked down to see her hand tightly gripping the knife she had just rammed into his belly, right up to the hilt.

She stared back at him, her gaze as cold as the grave.

"Still want to fuck me, or am I too aggressive for you?"

She pulled out the knife and drove it into him again, this time just below the diaphragm, hopefully severing one of the major blood vessels that ran through the abdomen. He cried out in pain and sank to his knees, clutching at his wounds.

She stumbled over to Hamamoto's body to retrieve her pistol, then turned it on Kamio and shot him in the head. She used Hamamoto's shirt to wipe the blood from the knife blade and returned it to its sheath before turning her attention to Kamio's partner. Shimedzu was starting to come around and was making pitiful groaning sounds while clutching his crushed testicles. She silenced him with a shot to the head as well. Neither of them may have posed much risk, but you never left a live enemy behind you, especially when you were operating alone.

Hobbling away from the carnage, she leaned against the wall to take stock of her injuries. Besides the graze to her left arm and her lacerated right foot, she now had a broken left hand, a split lip and a cut inside her mouth. A small piece of bone was protruding from the back of her left hand and had nicked a vein on its way through. The blood from it was mingling with the persistent trickle that was running down her arm and dripped off of her fingers to the floor. Her ribs felt like she had broken a few, making breathing and moving difficult and painful, and her stomach hurt like hell where Kamio had driven his fist into her. There was a good chance that she had ligament damage in her right knee and she would be fortunate if she didn't have a concussion. She certainly had a whale of a headache.

If pain was nature's way of letting you know you were still alive, then Misato felt very much alive at the moment. She took a few minutes to catch her breath, every expansion and contraction of her chest a painful one. She looked towards the staircase.

"Well Shinji, I'm still alive. And with a little luck I'll get you out of here yet."

She pushed away from the wall and limped towards the stairs.

* * *

Well, two thirds of the way there and Chapter 3 should be coming your way next week. 

Possibly.

At least it will if I can get the end of the chapter to come together into something I can live with.

Thanks for reading and please take time to review if you're so inclined. As always your reviews are encouraged and appreciated.

That goes for my other stories too. You know how to find them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Blood Resolve**

I do not own Neon Genesis Evangelion or the rights to anything associated with it. Gainax created this world, I just play in it.

I do however own any and all original characters that appear within this story.

Third and final chapter. Please read, enjoy, and review.

_**Chapter Three**_

Shinji had heard the gunshots that faintly echoed through the empty halls of the school. When it had started his captor went down the hall to monitor the battle, leaving the classroom door open. He had heard what he thought was a woman screaming at one point, but it was hard to tell, it was too far away. A few minutes later his captor returned, shutting the door and walking up to him.

"It seems that your rescuer is quite determined," he had said. "They should be here soon. Be a good boy and don't tip them off that I'm here." For good measure, the guy smashed him across the head with his pistol, knocking him out.

When he regained consciousness, his head was throbbing and he felt sick. He could feel something warm and wet trickling down the right side of his face. His vision was blurry and he had a hard time getting his eyes to focus. In the dim light from the single fixture that had been left intact at the front of the room, he could just make out a shape slowly coming through the door to his makeshift cell.

He closed his eyes tightly, then blinked rapidly several times, even that small effort making his head swim. His vision cleared but what he saw made his eyes go as wide as saucers and filled him with worry. Gingerly making her way towards him, a pistol in her hand and leading the way, was Misato. And she wasn't looking very healthy at the moment. The conversation he had heard earlier in the day rang through his mind.

'_We're being well paid to do this job and it isn't about the kid anyway, so stop complaining. He's just the bait. A convenient tool to lure a target and nothing more.' _

Out of the corner of his eye he saw his captor emerge from cover and aim his gun at her. Oddly, he didn't panic. He didn't even think about what he was doing, he simply acted as if on some long dormant instinct. All other considerations were absent from his mind, his usual stream of thoughts about his percieved worthlessness and cowardice didn't come forth to cloud his mind like they always did. All he knew was that his captor wanted to kill Misato and he couldn't let it happen. Though he had never let anyone know it, she meant a great deal to him and he would gladly trade his life for hers if that's what it took.

He was gagged, his hands were tied together behind the back of the chair, and his ankles were loosely tied to the chair's front legs. He couldn't move very much, so he did the only thing he could. He threw his weight forward and pushed off with his feet, launching himself towards her. Hopefully he could knock her out of the way. He didn't hear the gun go off and he barely felt the bullet slam into him.

* * *

Misato was surprised by Shinji's sudden lunge, but grateful for it nonetheless since it saved her life. The blows she had taken to the head were making her dizzy and she was having trouble keeping her focus and concentration. Her overwhelming determination to save Shinji was the only thing that was keeping her from collapsing to the floor. It had been a slow and painful trip to the room on the third floor. At least it was easy to find since it was the only one with a light on. She had cautiously peered in through the small window in the door and she was relieved to see Shinji there, even if he did look like he was out of it. He was moving so he was alive. 

She was sure there had to be someone else in the room and since she had no idea what the layout of the room was, she was going in completely blind. She had no choice but to go in and take the hand she was dealt. She just hoped that she could take out the enemy before they got her or did anything to Shinji.

Several things happened all at once. She had just caught the enemy out of the corner of her eye when Shinji bumped her. Pain exploded across her already damaged ribs and she fell backwards. She heard the kidnapper's weapon fire twice in rapid succession. She heard the sound of a bullet striking flesh and a grunt of pain from Shinji, and she heard the zip of the second bullet going by her right ear.

She got a shot off that missed, but at least it made the guy duck. She also got a look at him and realized that she knew him. His name was Toshino Takemura and he was the leader of Commander Ikari's personal protection team. It was rumoured that when the Commander needed someone to disappear, Takemura was the man he turned to for results. She was beginning to understand now what this was all about and it made her blood boil.

As she painfully hit the floor she let out a scream of pure rage. The second she caught a glimpse of Takemura stepping towards her and ready to fire, she began shooting. He got off one hasty shot a split second before she did that tore through her jacket and tugged at her shirt, but miraculously missed flesh. With her aim wobbly due to the fact that the damage to her ribs made it hard for her to raise her arm, and the blows to the head making her move like she was drunk, she just started blasting, trying to keep the pistol on target and hoping to get him before he got her.

Her first shot took a chunk out of his side just above his left hip. Her aim drifted to the right as he stumbled over to her left. She overcorrected and put a shot off the wall before coming back on target and putting one through his gut that sent him stumbling backwards into the pile of desks he had previously been using for cover. She fired two shots that went high and to her right before dropping her aim back down and putting one into the upper right side of his chest.

Her follow up shot went over his head and clanged off of one of the desks as he slid to a sitting position on the floor, getting off a shot as he did that went over her head and took a chunk out of the black board. They fired again at the same time, his shot just missing her head to the right, hers smashing through his nose, on through his brain, and out the back of his head. For good measure she emptied the rest of the USP's magazine into his corpse, just to make sure.

She laid back on the floor and let the pain calm down a bit. "Shinji?" she called out. When she got no response she raised her head and looked at him. He was on his left side, still tied to the chair and with his back to her. She was going to call out to him again when she saw the blood staining his white shirt.

"Shinji!" She crawled over to him and was horrified to see that he had taken Takemura's first shot in the right side of the chest. "Oh my God, Shinji!" She gave him a shake and he moaned.

She pulled her knife and cut the ropes holding him to the chair. Doing the best she could with only one good hand, she cut pieces out of the blanket from his makeshift bed to make a rough field dressing which she pressed against the wound. It wasn't much, but it was all she could do for the moment.

She pulled out her cell phone and called for a NERV medical team to come and get them. Shinji's bastard father may have set this whole thing up, but she doubted that Shinji getting shot was part of the plan. She didn't trust anyone from NERV at the moment, but it was the only logical choice for assistance since they had the best doctors and would get someone here long before the civilian authorities would.

"Don't you go dying on me Shinji-kun," she said to him after making the call. "Don't you dare break my heart and leave me all alone." Tears began to roll down her cheeks as she took his hand in hers. "You can't die anyway, you're invincible, remember?"

Once she had Shinji in the care of the doctors and she knew he would be all right, she was going to pay the Commander a visit and confirm her suspicions about what this entire thing had been all about. One thing she knew for sure was that she was going to make the bastard pay, one way or another.

**_

* * *

_**

She never had liked Commander Ikari's office. It was so large and empty and the way he kept the lights dimmed for the scary bastard effect creeped her out. Currently, she was standing in the middle of the enormous room while the Commander was standing over by the windows, watching the artificial sky of the GeoFront begin to brighten as dawn arrived.

"So you managed to survive to see the light of another day," he observed, finally turning around to acknowledge her presence.

"Thanks to Shinji," she said. "You bastard, you couldn't even come at me straight up, could you? You just had to hatch this plot and throw your own son in the middle of it."

"Knowledge is power Major Katsuragi," he began. "But knowledge in the wrong hands can be problematic to those with the power. You were getting too close to things that I did not wish for you to know. Disposing of you in the same manner that SEELE disposed of your lover was not an option. No one would ever believe that you would just simply disappear, never to be seen again."

She had known that Kaji was likely dead, but getting confirmation didn't make it any easier to take. "One of your ex-Section 2 hired goons said that my death was supposed to look like a heroic, failed rescue attempt."

"Indeed," the Commander agreed. "You enjoy a certain amount of popularity among your coworkers Major, and considering your personality, no one would ever take a simple disappearance at face value. It would raise too much suspicion and people would get far too curious about it and start asking questions. Something more noble and potentially heroic was in order to prevent that. Something that would be more in keeping with your personality. Everyone knows that you have a deep attachment to the Third Child. They know that you would not abandon him and that if someone were to try and harm him, you would not stand idly by and let it happen."

"I would give my life to save his without hesitation," she admitted.

"Precisely," he smiled. It reminded her of a shark somehow. "Life and death situations don't seem to frighten you very much. You did after all witness and survive Second Impact, and when the Fourteenth Angel broke into the command centre, you stood your ground and stared it in the face until Shinji arrived to fight it."

"Save the flattering comments," she growled. "It means nothing coming from you."

"I don't believe in flattery Major," he assured her. "I'm simply stating a fact. Another fact is that you were supposed to die the night of the kidnapping. When you heard the scuffle outside your door, or better yet, when Shinji called for you to help him, you were supposed to rush to his aid, only to be gunned down by the so called 'Soldiers of Adam' for your trouble. The Section 2 detail would then arrive and take down the kidnappers and report your heroic demise. You would have been given a hero's funeral."

"Glad I missed it," she said. "But instead of being cooperative, I got shit-faced and passed out."

"Even though it was a set up, you still proved to be a miserable failure where his safety was concerned," he reminded her. "And your timing was not appreciated. But I had planned for all contingencies, including the possibility that you would fail to hear the kidnapping take place. Predictably, you got drunk and spoiled the operation. Although, the extra time that Takemura had to hold Shinji captive allowed him to determine that you had not told him about any of the things you had found out."

"So you brought me here, humiliated me, and let me go and stew in my own juices for a while," she said tightly.

"And you did," he retorted. "But you didn't fold under the strain. The emotional mess you became only made you more determined to find out what was going on and do something about it. I must admit, you raised quite a stink as you bulldozed your way through the city looking for information. And you succeeded in gaining the only information that I allowed to be available. I was impressed by your tenacity, that is one of the reasons I hired you on to be the Operations Director in the first place."

"Coming from you that means so very much to me," she spat.

He ignored her sarcasm. "Takemura hired his ex-Section 2 comrades Kamio and Shimedzu to oversee the meat of the operation for him, knowing they would be eager to get a shot at you. They in turn hired the other men to do the dirty work and act as cannon fodder. You weren't supposed to get past Kamio and Shimedzu, but you not only did that, you got to Takemura and managed to kill him as well."

"He's dead because Shinji took a bullet for me," she told him coldly. "Regardless of what you think of him, your son is not a coward."

"I never truly thought that he was," the Commander admitted, surprising her. "A true coward would have run away and never came back. He kept getting back into the Evangelion and fighting and defeating the Angels, even though it was taking a toll on him both mentally and physically. I may have manoeuvred him into the machine and did what I had to in order to keep him there, but even when he tried to quit or run, I knew that he would always come back to it. He cares too much for other people. He would rather fight and die than see others have to do the same thing. His life means nothing to him, but evidently yours is something that is very dear to him."

"His life doesn't mean much to you either," she accused. "First you abandon him after he just lost his mother, then you bring him here just so you can use him."

A feral smile came to his lips. "And what about you Major? Aren't you using him as well? You command him in the fight against the Angels. He is the instrument that you use to get revenge for your father's death, for the horror of Second Impact that still plagues you to this day."

"And I will have to live with that for the rest of my life," she shot back. "At least I have the decency to be ashamed of myself for it."

"Decency is not a word that fits you Major," he continued. "You took him into your home because you were lonely, again, using him for your purpose. You use him to take care of you and your home. You flaunt yourself in front of him regularly and tease him with innuendo. What other purposes have you used him for I wonder? Have you taken him into your bed as well?"

She was seething with anger, but she realized that his words were just meant to provoke her. Truth be told though, she had thought about taking Shinji into her bed a couple of times. And on those occasions she had promptly drank herself stupid to drown those thoughts and wash them from her mind.

She smirked at the Commander. "If I had taken him into my bed he would have known that someone loved him. And I have no doubt that I would have gotten the better Ikari. Shinji would never use me and throw me away like you did with Ritsuko. I feel sorry for her, she must have been truly desperate to want you."

"She was merely a tool, just as you were," he responded. "My relationship with her was nothing more than a method by which to bind her to my will. She was not unaware of that even if it did take her a long time to realize it. She is still useful to this organization, that is why I allow her to continue to live even if it is now under close surveillance instead of in a jail cell. If the Seventeenth Angel ever does arrive, myself or Fuyutsuki can run the operation. With your snooping around you have made yourself expendable."

"God, you're such a disgusting asshole. So who else knew about this little plan of yours?" she asked. "Did the Sub Commander know what was going on?"

"I kept him in the dark on this. He had strong feelings for Shinji's mother and would not have approved of her son being used like this, despite all of the other things he was party to," he answered. "In those cases he kept his personal reservations to himself."

"Yeah, that's what he told me when I confronted him outside the operating room," she told him. "We had a very long and productive discussion before I came here."

The sudden, although brief look of shock on the Commander's face was priceless. "What are you talking about?" he demanded.

"While you were busy sleeping and dreaming of who to fuck over next instead of being concerned about the well being of your own son, I had a couple of concerned visitors while I was waiting for Shinji to come out of surgery," she told him. "I stuck my gun under the Sub Commander's nose and demanded answers. I was ready to kill him before he convinced me that he knew nothing about it."

The problem this possibly presented worried Gendo. He still needed Fuyutsuki and he couldn't afford to lose his allegiance. He had a bad feeling about this and it only got worse.

"You're right about his feelings for Shinji's mother," she continued. "He admitted that he loved her and using Shinji to set me up was the last straw for him. He's been fighting with his conscience for a long time now and this forced him to finally make a decision. He has turned against you Commander and he gave me the short version about your plans for Instrumentality. He told me about the souls in the Eva's, about Lilith being the one crucified in Terminal Dogma and about Adam being grafted to your hand. He even told me that it was Kaji who brought it to you." Learning that not so insignificant fact had hurt her badly.

"I see," he said, trying to maintain his composure. "Who was your other visitor?"

"You already know the answer to that," she smirked.

"Rei," he said quietly.

She nodded. "They told me all about her too. She's turned against you too and won't do as you wish anymore. She made that decision shortly after her third self was activated. She began to regain the memories of her former selves and she started to think for herself and think about what she wants. She wants to live and have a life of her own and you can thank Shinji's influence on her for that. I don't really know how I feel about her now that I know what she has become, but I'm willing to trust her for now. If I'm still alive after this I might even consider taking her in as well. Someone needs to show her how to live."

"That will not happen," he said darkly. "I created her and she will do what I command. She always has and she always will."

Her smile was predatory. "You can't pull her strings now, she isn't your doll anymore. And there is nothing left for you to command. Sub Commander Fuyutsuki should have already pried Ritsuko out from under your surveillance net and instructed her to package up all of the information she can to expose you to the UN and the government. Rei is watching over Shinji for me to make sure you and your private thugs leave him alone. It's the end of the line and you're done for you filthy fucking bastard. All of your plans and schemes are dead. You've got nothing left. You're finished."

"I plan for every contingency Major," he sneered. "So long as I am alive I can still succeed with my plans, no matter how long it takes." He didn't try to hide his movements as he slipped his right hand into the pocket of his uniform jacket and pulled out his gun.

"That will depend on what happens in the next few minutes," she said as she reached behind her back and drew her USP and held it ready at her side. It was cocked and ready to fire. "You have no choice now. If you want me dead you'll have to show some balls. You'll have to look me in the eye and do it yourself."

"I have no problem with that."

Adrenaline could overcome a lot, and for Misato it overcame the effects of her injuries and her fatigue. She was dizzy, in pain, and exhausted, but her self imposed mission wasn't quite done yet. She might die here but she had no intention of going quietly. A spilt second after she saw the Commander's gun start to come up, hers did the same. Her youth and her training meant her reflexes were better than his, and even in her current condition there was no way she would let Gendo beat her to the draw, even if he did move first. She barely noticed the pounding in her head and the pain in her ribs as she brought her weapon to bear. Both weapons fired at the same time and both targets were hit.

Gendo Ikari fell back against the windows of his office in a spray of blood and brains and slowly slid to the floor in a boneless sprawl, his broken orange glasses hanging crookedly on his face. A .40 calibre S&W round passed through his left eye, through the temporal and occipital lobes of his brain, and out the back of his head where it struck the bullet proof glass with a dull thunk.

Misato sucked in a shuddering, pain wracked breath. The bullet had hit her high, right around the middle of her left collarbone, breaking it and sending bullet fragments into her shoulder. Breathing was painful as the expansion and contraction of her chest pulled at the wound. She could feel blood running out of the wound and trickling over her shoulder to the floor. God, it hurt so much. She was barely aware of the sound of hurried footsteps slapping the floor and people yelling. Her vision began to dim and the last thing she saw was the depiction of the Tree of Life on the ceiling of Commander Ikari's office.

* * *

Shinji awoke from his latest nap and looked to his left after a brief contemplation of what was now an all too familiar ceiling. In another bed a few feet away was Misato, still unconscious since her arrival in the room two days earlier. The doctors had told him that they would both be alright and that they should have no permanent or significant impairments from their injuries. 

Still, he was worried about her. Even though the doctors had said she would be okay, seeing her lying in that bed bruised and bandaged for the last two days still frightened him. It reminded him how close he had come to losing her and that was something he knew he never would have been able to bear.

Getting shot had also made him realize a few things about himself. His instinctive, spur of the moment decision to knock Misato out of his captor's line of fire had made him realize that perhaps his ambivalence about his life was misplaced. He found that he had a reason to live that had nothing to do with the Eva or NERV. That reason was Misato. She had risked her life to come and get him and he couldn't take that lightly, no matter what he thought of himself.

Even so, he would have felt guilty if she had died because it would have been in an attempt to save him and he didn't feel like his life was worth that kind of sacrifice. Hell, he felt guilty now, but if she had died it would have devastated him. He also felt a sense of guilt about the whole situation being a plot by his father. Sub Commander Fuyutsuki had stopped by earlier in the day and told him what his father had done and told him what had happened in his office. He found that he felt rather unaffected by his father's death, the bastard had done too much harm and hurt too many people for him to show any sadness at his passing now. Perhaps he would feel something about it later, but right now he just couldn't. Not when he could see the results of his father's last scheme lying unconscious in the bed beside his.

He could do little else, so he contented himself with just laying there and watching Misato sleep. He was far too shy to admit it, not to mention afraid, but he had a huge crush on his friend and guardian. He couldn't use the word love, because it was an emotion he always felt he was unworthy of. Once he had gotten used to how she lived, he actually began to feel comfortable around her. Or, at least as comfortable as a timid fourteen year old boy could feel when he was living with a gorgeous woman who drank too much, liked to tease him, and often wandered around the apartment wearing a minimum of clothing.

Shortly, Misato finally began to stir, slowly waking up from her long sleep. Shinji couldn't help but chuckle at some of the faces she made as she slowly returned to consciousness.

"Shinji…" she muttered thickly.

"I'm right here Misato."

She rolled her head to the right and opened her eyes. She smiled. "You okay Shinji?"

"The doctor said I'd be fine," he told her. He could see the relief on her face. "He said you'd be okay too, but they still have to operate on your hand and your knee." She didn't respond and he saw that she had started to cry. "Misato?"

"I'm sorry Shinji," she sniffled. "I wasn't there when you needed me. When you called for me to help you I was passed out drunk on the floor." All it took was for her to see him in that hospital bed to make her shame and self recrimination rise back to the surface. "If I had been sober they wouldn't have taken you. You wouldn't have ended up getting shot."

"But you would have," he said. "Sub Commander Fuyutsuki was here this morning and told me what happened. If you had come to the door, they would have killed you."

"That doesn't absolve me from blame Shinji. I'm your guardian, I'm supposed to look after you and be there when you need me." Her voice got quiet and he had to strain to hear her. "But I never am. I'm at work, or I'm out getting plastered somewhere. Even when I'm home, I'm not really there. Not anymore."

"Misato…" he was at a loss, he really didn't know what to say or do.

"You should hate me Shinji."

That hit him like a brick to the head. "What?"

"You should hate me," she repeated. "I'm immature and irresponsible and I use you. I took you into my home to ease my loneliness. When we divided the chores I cheated so that you got most of them. You cook and do all the chores and you clean up after me. You look after me when I should be looking after you. I send you to fight in the Eva, to get revenge for my father's death and for what Second Impact did to me. You come back from those battles bruised and broken, inside and out, and again I send you out there because I can't rest until the Angels are dead. When you need me, I'm not there or I'm drunk, leaving you abandoned again. I'm no better than your father was."

"No!" he yelled. His eyes were ablaze with furious emotion and the tone of his voice shocked her. "You're nothing like my father! You're not like him so don't you ever say that! I don't hate you Misato, I could never hate you! I love you!"

Those last three words sprang from his mouth before he could stop them. It froze him, his eyes went wide in realization and shock at what he had just said and his heart hammered away in his chest. Those three simple little words carried so much weight for him. His mother would have been the last and only person to hear those words come from his mouth, and she would have been the last and only person to say them back to him.

His love of Misato was not based on one single facet, it was everything. Yes, she was gorgeous, and his hormones reminded him of that every time he looked at her. But his depression and introverted manner had served to make him seem oblivious and indifferent to the beauty before him. She had taken him in and shown him care and affection, not so much like a mother, but more like a fun, goofy big sister or a concerned friend. She tried to get him to confide in her and open himself up to the world and for a short time it had been working. She worried about him and was protective of him.

As messed up as Misato was, she was the one and only thing in his life he knew he could count on in any sort of a positive way. He liked being around her and he wanted to remain near her, no matter what shape their futures took and no matter what type of relationship they had. However, with Shinji being Shinji, he could not put those feelings and thoughts into words.

As for Misato, she was dumfounded. She had just given him every reason there was for him to hate her, or at the very least, be angry and disappointed with her. Instead, he had said the three words to her that would either swell or break her heart.

"Do you mean that Shinji?" she asked, her voice now hard and serious. "Because you never say those words to me unless you mean it."

Shinji knew he couldn't run from this even if he was able to. This was Misato, and he knew he had just dropped a bomb. He truly wanted to find some happiness in his life and he wanted it to be with her. He wanted to see her happy too. She was his family. So, for one of the few times in his life, he faced up to a situation and stood his ground.

"I…I mean it Misato," he stuttered nervously. "I can't say that to someone and not mean it. Especially not to you." He forced his eyes to meet hers. "You're the only one who cares. You're my family and I love you."

"You love me, but can you forgive me?" she asked. "And don't tell me there's nothing to forgive me for. The fact that you're in that hospital bed says differently." She knew how fragile Shinji could be and that perhaps she wasn't being fair by pushing him like this, but she had to know, one way or the other.

He decided that arguing with her about it would be pointless because, even though it wasn't part of his thought process at the time, he had in effect forgiven her when he had knocked her out of the line of fire. The look in her eyes was almost pleading and he knew he had to stand his ground again and give her an answer.

"I forgive you Misato."

She smiled and closed her eyes, tears silently rolled down her cheeks. "Thank you Shinji. And I love you too."

_**

* * *

Epilogue: **_

The UN took control of NERV and launched an investigation into the activities of all branches of the organization and those of the late Gendo Ikari in particular. Sub Commander Fuyutsuki and Dr. Akagi gave their full cooperation to the investigators in order to stay out of jail. SEELE itself was also investigated and with the help of Dr. Akagi and the MAGI, their computer records were decrypted and analyzed and the nature of the Seventeenth Angel was discovered, causing no small amount of panic in the process. There was no sign of it however, or the members of the Instrumentality Committee and speculation was rampant as to why that was. However, with Adam and Lilith having been disposed of the day the Commander was killed, there should be no enticement for the Seventeenth to make itself known, if it ever intended to.

The UN decided to make use of the expensive resources that had gone into NERV and turn the organization into one dedicated to scientific research. Each facility had state of the art equipment and was staffed by some of the best scientific minds in the world. It would be criminal to waste it. For the Tokyo 3 branch, Fuyutsuki would be the administrative head, while Ritsuko would remain as the chief scientist. Both of them would be under intense scrutiny from the UN.

Misato was offered a position overseeing the security of the facilities and its staff, which she only took after some serious negotiations. She wanted guardianship of Rei. Someone needed to look after her and give her a chance for a normal life, and she wasn't about to let the UN treat her like a prisoner or a lab specimen. Rei agreed to have her S2 organ removed if it meant that she could be left alone to live her life. With Ritsuko and Fuyutsuki's help, Misato got her way and Rei got what she wanted. A chance to have a normal life as her own person.

Asuka was taken back to Germany by her father and didn't break out of her catatonic state until six months later. It was two years before she could be left without supervision for fear that she would kill herself. With continuing therapy, something all of the pilots and top end staff of the Tokyo 3 branch engaged in to varying degrees, she was able to return to a relatively normal life. She went back to university and gained another degree before going to work for NERV in Germany. It would be a long time before she could bring herself to go back to Japan.

After the shock of finding out what NERV had been all about had worn off, Shinji found himself gaining a level of happiness that he had never known in his young life. With the help of Misato, and the thrice weekly psychotherapy sessions they all had, he slowly began to lose the crippling shyness, depression, and low self esteem that had been the bane of his existence. He began to enjoy his new instant family and he found that he liked helping Rei learn how to live and he really enjoyed living with Misato. After the stresses caused by the constant threat of annihilation at the hands of the Angels, the normal stresses of everyday life just didn't seem all that heavy anymore.

He wore the bullet that had been removed from his chest on a leather thong around his neck. He treated it as a reminder to himself. It was a reminder that someone cared enough about him to risk their life for him and it reminded him of the day that changed his life.

When he knocked Misato out of Takemura's line of fire, he didn't do so because it was expected of him or because he was the only one who could, like his piloting of the Eva had been. He didn't do it because he wanted to be seen as a hero who selflessly gave themselves up for the benefit of another. He did it without thinking about his own mortality and he did it because someone he cared deeply about was in danger.

That day started him on a different path. Their near death experience made him stand his ground and tell Misato how he felt about her, and her reciprocation of those feelings ensured that he wouldn't go back to the way he was before. She made it her mission to make sure he never became the old Shinji again.

The bond between himself and Misato was now sealed with blood and it would never break. Neither of them would know what it was like to be lonely again.

* * *

So I like happy endings...sue me. 

Hope you liked it. Please review if you're so inclined. I enjoy the feedback and it motivates me to keep putting out material for you to enjoy.

And by all means, check out my other stories and let me know what you think on them as well. You know where to find them.


End file.
